“Najteir Alaila Anadal Lihuela” (2014/2017) – Mariem Hassan * Written by Zaim Alal, Mariem Hassan, and Ravid Kahalani
So arresting were the vocals of the Western Saharan Mariem Hassan that one needed no primer in her Hassaniyyan language to get the emotional message. Before she passed away in 2015, she had recorded this track (under the title “Tonight I Will Be Pretty”) for an album by Ravid Kahalani’s Yemen Blues. The version on her posthumous 2017 La Voz Indomita collection, though, strips away everything but the barest essentials—including her desert bird trills—and it’s a jewel.